Another story, another chapter of the series Lifestyle. Who has familiarity with East Asia and its tradition knows already. Japan is the country of miniatures. The most famous ones and worldwide appreciated are bonsai (盆栽). Those plants so little and so cute are so fragile and delicate, so much that if not treated in a proper way, can die in a few days. Small and trustable reproductions of real plants such as pine tree, maple, and so on, in their smallness they hide thousands of years of traditions imported (like many other things) from the neighbouring China.

But bonsai are not the only miniature. Here, indeed, everything is available in two sizes, standard and mini. The Japanese are already small by genes and nature, and as a consequence, all is adapted to this smallness. houses are small, doors are low, and my head knows it well, the supermarkets aisles are ridiculously narrow and dangerous, the shopping baskets are small too, fruits and vegetables are miniatures as well. Watermelons can be as big as a mango, and pumpkins can be as big as a apple. In addition, as it wasn't enough already, guess what dogs the Japanese like? obviously the dog-mouse type.

Creams and make up accessories, shower soaps and tooth paste are also available as travel size, which is not a bad idea at all.
Then we have the mini boxes for sweets and cakes, where there's enough space for only one candy and it's cozy and well wrapped.

Last but not least in the miniatures list,something scary: mini icecreams are very mini. Those that to be satisfied you have to eat 20 of those to make one real icecream.

Now, the core question is why the persistence on the little,why a micro-macro dichotomy should exist? Fundamentally because little is "kawaii" (cute). We can then conclude that 'small is beautiful' and that in Japaland the butterfly effect of boyishness is sensed. In facts, when they are in front of something cute, the Japanese say 'oshiare', that means 'trendy' but that has a double use: trendy is all that is cute, candyish, sugary, dollyish, glittering and...PINK!but trendy can be also stylish. The girls dressing up like dolls, the love for pink, the love for all inspires youth is usually small and 'kawaii', that means cute and trendy.

And I think that perhaps the descendants of samurai and ninja found a solution to a possible inferiority complex.

Do we want to investigate on the japanese people's bathing habits? Summer, time of fashion, extravagances and trends. Here in Japan it's like things haven't changed for years. First of all, woman's swimwear: if you find a NORMAL , classic simple and minimal bikini, then you didn't buy it here. Because here the trend is full, charged, overloaded bikinis full of super-structures: the skirtlet, the volants, flowers and other ornaments 6th century-like. Second, many girls use short pants, long up to the knee. Then, because the Japanese don't have a good relationship with the sun (in facts the women in the middle of summer use to wear hats, parasol, all-arm-gloves to keep their skin candle-white), it's not rare to see people who go to the beach fully dressed and have a swim in their clothes. The swimwear industry then invented a trend that looks more udeful for diving than swimming: bikini and then a nice an not-pretty-at-all shirt and short pants.

Want we also talk about the Japanese amphibian abilities? well, they're great in swimming, but only if inside a huge inflatable ring. Instead of swimming, they prefer to soak in the sea and take a nap. And I am mentioning men and women, with no distinction. Typical beach games are the common ones: frisbee, ball, racketing, and then there are the sports less common like riding the waves on a giant banana drag by a waterbike, watch girls screaming and running away from the water when scaredby a seaweed or a wave up to their bellybutton.

Ah, something that seems to be very trendy is to be buried under the sand, only the head out, and friends who make fun of the friends buried under with creating strange shapes and protrusions...

The remaining part is well known: guys run around and behave silly on the shore, they fall asleep on their fantastic inflatable rings, they thtrow sand on people, and everybody brings food, so at the end of the dat the beach looks like a open trash. Baywatches are well burnt, small and thin, but march the beach up and down to make sure that people are safe.